A Beauty and Southern Lifestyle Blog

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I stumbled upon this beauty trick after a product ‘fail’. As I am sure you have noticed by now if you follow me on Instagram, I am obsessed with anything bronze-y or that enhances a tan. I bought the Maybelline Dream Bronze BB in hopes that I would get a beautiful summer glow when using it. Well it didn’t. And I don’t really like it for its intended purpose. But when used as a means to darken your winter foundation shades, it’s amazing.

You can see here that Estee Lauder Double Wear in 1N1 is my winter shade. And because I do not want to have a billion foundation bottles sitting on my vanity, I use the Bronze BB to darken the shade to suit my current skin color. Another added benefit to the BB product is that it sheers out the Double Wear a little bit, which is what I want in the spring and summer. Hope this quick tip helps save some money and let me know if you have any other foundation tricks.

Sorry for such a delayed posting! Once the weeks leading up to the wedding hit, I was swamped with wedding duties and work duties. I am waiting for the professional pictures to get back before I upload my beach wedding eye makeup post. I absolutely loved how my makeup turned out and I cannot wait to share it with y’all! But for now, a perfume review will do!

My personal philosophy is that perfume adds the perfect final touch to any beauty routine, especially a bridal one. I knew I wanted a signature perfume for my wedding day but I just did not know where to start. Then one ordinary day I heard of Bobbi Brown’s Beach eau de parfum. By just the name alone I was intrigued and dying to discover what type of scent this was. A few days later I stopped by Saks Fifth Avenue, made my way over to the Bobbi Brown counter, and sampled Beach. It was truly love at first scent!

Per Bobbi Brown’s website, Beach is described as having a “lightly intoxicating blend of sand jasmine, sea spray, and mandarin.” Translation: it smells like Coppertone. Now you are probably thinking “why on Earth would you want to wear that for the most glamorous and special day of your life?” It boils down to personal preference. I have always been obsessed with anything beach related (hence my desire for a beach wedding). Few things in life make me happier than laying in a beach chair and soaking up the sun. Since the wedding day is one of the most-important days of a person’s life, I wanted a perfume that I would always remember fondly and Beach was it.

While there is definitely a strong Coppertone-esque top note, it is slightly more sophisticated of a scent than straight-up sunscreen. Beach is quite potent so you only need one to two sprays of this beauty. However, this is not a long-lasting perfume and I do not notice any middle or base notes as the scent dries down. A few hours into the wedding I ended up spraying a few more sprays, which was fine with me because I had a touch-up bag with me during the reception. For me personally, the scent and the memory associated with the scent was more important than the longevity. It comes in a simple, clean-looking bottle (if you choose to purchase the bottle, also comes in a rollerball) and contains 1.7 fluid ounces. It is not a cheap perfume and if you want to reapply it throughout the day, you may run out of this product fairly quickly. I was able to purchase it during the Sephora VIB sale and it was for my wedding so I had no problem justifying the purchase 🙂

All-in-all, Beach does not have the most elegant and sophisticated scent but for a beach wedding I thought it was perfect! This is also just a great perfume to wear during the warm and hot months, especially when you wish you were at the beach. It has such a great scent and you will no doubt smile every time you spray it on!

Face primers and setting sprays are very essential for a summer bride. Even if you do not struggle with foundation and other face makeup breaking down on you normally, you will still want to make sure these steps are part of your wedding day makeup. Between sweating, the humidity (at least for those of us in the South), and oil from your face, brides getting married in those hot months need all the help they can get.

To start with, face primers go on after your moisturizer and before any face makeup. However, there are many different primers with many different purposes. There are primers to reduce the look of pores, to make your makeup glide more easily on to the skin, to improve the longevity of foundation, to reduce oil, to calm red skin, and so on. For me, as a gal with extremely oily skin, I wanted something that would help my foundation last long while keeping me matte. Girls with dry skin, since they do not have the same struggle that I do, may want a primer that helps the foundation apply better on the skin, but still improves the wear of their makeup. This is something that you will need to decide first before going out to purchase one. For those wanting a smoother canvas to apply their makeup, go for a silicone-based primer (here is the article again helping you find out what type your foundation and primer is). On my skin though, silicone-based primers cause my face makeup to just glide right off. I tend to go for mineral- or water-based primers, as they are more mattifying (or at least the ones I have tried).

As pictured above, and yes I am horrible with taking photos, I LOVE Hourglass Veil Mineral Primer. I bought the smaller size because I rarely use primer. Unless it’s a special occasion or I need my foundation to look perfect all day, I really do not see the need to add another product to my foundation routine. This primer is just amazing though! It greatly improves the longevity of whatever foundation I am wearing while calming down some of my redness. While there is a sunscreen in it, the ingredients that provide the SPF are chemical not physical, and therefore do not cause flashback.

Even though I loved my primer I already had, I thought that for my wedding I would test a few other primers. Of course I had to try the Smashbox ones! They are a cult classic after all! I ended up getting either the sample sizes or actual samples of the regular, light version, and the green-toned version. These all have silicone in them and just did not do well with my skin type. The green-toned one helped reduce the redness in my face but that was the only benefit for me. I would, as previously mentioned, suggest these primers for brides with normal to dry skin. I also tried the Becca Ever-Matte primer. I had heard great things about this primer and the name was ever so intriguing to me. Sadly, I really did not like this one either! It was definitely mattifying, but it was so difficult to blend on to my skin! It was so weird. I understand that silicone is the ingredient that improves a product’s blend-ability but I just could not make this work for me. It ended up causing my foundation to pill up when I applied it, which is NOT a look I want for my wedding. So for those with combination to oily skin, I would steer them towards the Hourglass one.

Finally, you will want to set all your makeup with a setting spray. The one I have loved for years is Urban Decay De-Slick Oil-Control Setting Spray (the one pictured where you cannot see the name, yeah that’s the one). This amazing product is what I will use on my wedding day since it is great at controlling oil. For normal skin to combination, I suggest using their All-Nighter Long-Lasting Setting Spray. Girls with dry skin, IMO, could get away without a long-lasting or oil-controlling setting spray. If you really would still like to set your makeup, I would say try MAC Fix+ spray. It is such a nice product and gets rid of that powdery look. With all the great ingredients in it, it will bring a healthy look to your skin. Hope these tips have helped and as always test these products out well in advance!

The next part of the beauty routine are powders. Whether they are setting, blush, bronzer, or highlighting powders, all bridal makeup looks call for them, especially one for a beach wedding. Dry skin girls that means you too! While you may typically get away with not using setting powder and using cream color products, your wedding day mainly calls for powders. You want your makeup to last long and throughout the evening, and you want to avoid the extremely dewy look in photographs. A light dusting of setting powder will do wonders for the longevity of your foundation while still letting the finish from the foundation come through. The keyword here is “light” – you do not want too heavy of an application or the makeup will become ever so visible and noticeable, especially through HD lenses. Additionally, powder color products (blush, bronzer, highlight) dramatically reduce the shininess factor compared to their cream counterparts.

Regarding your setting powder, if you are not going to use a translucent setting powder find a shade closest to your skin tone and color. If anything, you can always go a shade lighter if you are not sure. Also keep in mind the finish of the powder. While you may like glitter or shimmer to your everyday setting powder, flash photography will enhance those glitter particles. So for the wedding day, try to find one without any detectable particles.

Along with foundations, powders can cause flashback with photography. This article (mentioned in the Foundation post) has great information on the ingredients in cosmetics that cause it. This article was godsend when I could not find out for the life of me why my beloved MAC Studio Fix Powder Plus Foundation was flashing back horribly in photos! MAC is known for creating great stage makeup so I just assumed it would be great for a wedding, particularly because it is such a long-wearing powder. After much research, I found out that their powder foundation is not meant for flash photography. The second ingredient listed is silica, which is infamously known for creating that ghost-face. So I decided to try a few other powders. I also had at the time MAC Mineralize Skinfinish Natural powder (popularly known as MSFN). While not full out giving me a white cast to my face, the powder caused my face to appear to be a few shades lighter in photographs. The second ingredient listed for this powder is mica, another pesky culprit.

So I decided to look through the powders that Sephora sells. Almost every single powder has either silica or mica listed in the main ingredients section. I was getting pretty frustrated. Until one day while I was cleaning up my apartment I looked at my college graduation picture. I remembered that last summer I was using L’Oreal True Match powder and that I had no flashback. I went out and bought it, tested it again just to make sure, and it looked great! Does a great job of setting my makeup and keeping me matte. Mica is only listed in the “May Contain” section and is not a primary ingredient. I highly suggest this powder for normal, combination, and oily skin types. It has a great color range for a drugstore powder and is in a great compact that can easily be brought with you on the wedding day for touch-ups. While I was at the drugstore I ended up picking up Maybelline Dream Wonder powder to test as well. Similar to the True Match powder, there is no silica in it and mica is in the “May Contain” part of the ingredient list. This also photographs beautifully! I really love how natural this powder looks on the skin! Sadly, though, I do not feel it is as mattifying as True Match is so I highly suggest this for dry skin and possibly normal skin as well. It also comes in a compact form with a sponge and mirror.

Finally, to bring some color and dimension back into your face, you will want to use a bronzer, blush, and subtle highlight. While these do not have to be matte, if you would like to use ones with shimmer or glitter, make sure they have micro-glitter particles. If you found a shimmery blush or highlight that you would like to use, test it out beforehand using the flash from your cellphone. Another note about color products is that they are often washed out in photographs. So come your wedding day, you will need to apply more product than normal but not enough to look clownish. If you do wish to contour, find a neutral- or cool-toned bronzing powder and make sure you blend blend blend!! This is so important. You do not want to get your pictures back with the “candy bars” under your cheek bones. Just remember with everything that you want to look back at your makeup from that day ten years down the road and be glad that you had a timeless look. Hope these tips have helped and hopefully my next post will be about face primers and setting sprays!

This is a blog born out of a little niche of the beauty world that I felt was lacking. If you glanced at the title, you probably have figured out what I am talking about. I personally have a beach wedding quickly approaching, which has piqued my interest in the topic!! With the popularity of beach weddings being ever on the rise, I felt that the tips and tricks for beach wedding/bridal make-up was severely lacking and often times overlooked. For those of us who want to do our own beauty look for that important day, not much material and tutorials exist. I would like to share my thoughts and research in hopes that it helps some of you who choose not to hire a make-up artist for the special day. If you have any questions, tips, tricks, or suggestions for other beach brides please do not hesitate to leave a comment!

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Meet the Belle

Hi! I'm Chloe, lover of all things girly and Southern. I am obsessed with any and everything beauty related and enjoy sharing my discoveries, tips, and tricks along with a lifestyle post here and there.